Why was the bible composed in the first place?

Tell me the pros and cons about these thoughts of mine. Let me know if They are wrong. Expound on it please! I don't want to tell anything if it is wrong.

The bible was composed for governments. It was never intended to be a people's book. The council of Niccea composed this book as more of a constitution. A book to put fear into any nation who opposed them (like the Hebrews). Now you could only pray to God using the Christian method and our savior from our country. Only in the name of Jesus would God hear you from now on.

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I love reading different opinions and facts, but I found it hilarious to read that we should treat a fiction writer to scorn and derision. Most fiction is unadulterated bullshit, but I liked Star Wars anyway.

Same here. I think the reason some folks get paranoid-defensive about "The DaVinci Code is fiction!!!" is that it touched a lot of nerves. The scant (very, very scant - like 8 pieces out of a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle) historical facts used in the book are stretched to the limit in different directions by different characters, who - as is human nature - state their conjecture as fact without qualifiers or sources.

That conjecture gets confused for fact by some readers, and by Dan Brown haters as the author stating it as fact.

That's quite simply untrue. First of all, the historical facts in the book are not scant (unless you want to call the whole background story "scant") and second of all, Dan Brown did state it as fact:

Savidge: When we talk about da Vinci and your book, how much is true and how much is fabricated in your storyline?Brown: 99 percent of it is true. All of the architecture, the art, the secret rituals, the history, all of that is true, the Gnostic gospels. All of that is … all that is fiction, of course, is that there's a Harvard symbologist named Robert Langdon, and all of his action is fictionalized. But the background is all true.
(CNN interview)

"I began the research for The Da Vinci Code as a skeptic. I entirely expected, as I researched the book to disprove this (Jesus/Mary Magdalene/Grail) theory. And after numerous trips to Europe and about two years of research I really became a believer."
(ABC TV interview)

Matt Lauer: How much of this is based on reality in terms of things that actually occurred?"Dan Brown: Absolutely all of it.
(Today Show)

And people believe him.
Surveys of readers' attitudes to the historical information confirm that a large proportion of them accept Dan Brown's information almost without question. On June 23rd 2005 the National Geographic Society released a survey of readers of The Da Vinci Code which revealed 32% of 1005 readers agreed with the novel's claim that Jesus founded a 'bloodline' which is protected by a secret society to this day. In May 2006 the British pollster Opinion Research Business conducted a similar survey, finding that out of 1000 people surveyed, 60% of readers of the novel believed Jesus had a child by Mary Magdalene, as opposed to 30% of people who had not read the book.

Dan Brown is an idiot who doesn't do his own research, yet still has the audacity to claim that it's all true. Yes, I'll treat him with scorn, thanks.

I hadn't read or heard any interview from him, I fortunately do my research (hence posting this topic). I just assumed everything was fiction until proven correct. I do admit that I was mislead about the council of nicaea composing the bible after so many google results confirmed it. Wiki helped with that correction. Dan Brown is a writer that caters to my imagination but if he said these things, then yes, I agree with you to treat him with scorn. Forgive me if I still read his books though.

It's just the nature of things that when you see a book with "fact pages" and plenty of historical info, you assume that at least some of it is factually accurate. Hell, I believed the part about the Council of Nicea when I first read it.
By the way, if you're interested in how he did his research, that's a funny story. Since Brown apparently has some form of ADD he has a short attention span and so had his wife read books about the history of the period (conspiracy books like Holy Blood Holy Grail, mainly) and then she made a synopsis for him to read. It's this pecular type of "research" that Brown later defended as having produced information that was "absolutely accurate".

But by all means read his books as historical fiction if you enjoy them, I can only say that I personally can not respect him after these episodes.

I don't think this theory has a whole lot of merit, as the governmental systems of antiquity and to a lesser extent the middle ages tend to contradict many of the ideas of the bible. For example, the idea of believing the the "kingdom of god" as being greater then earthly kingdoms takes power away from the kings and emperors of the time. The only person that this could conceivably benefit is, of course, the pope. However, powerful as he was over policy within christian nations, I cannot imagine anyone creating the bible for that purpose alone.

However, I do not claim to be the most well versed person in the world on Christian history so I could very well be wrong.

I don't think this theory has a whole lot of merit, as the governmental systems of antiquity and to a lesser extent the middle ages tend to contradict many of the ideas of the bible.

It does seem counterintuitive. But look at it like our current "Tea Party" movement. At it's core, it's anti-government. But at the same time, its biggest supporters are in or heavily involved in big government. "Fight the power! Elect me!"

The Republicans/Rome see the Teabaggers/Christians as a useful force to be co-opted for their own political gain. What better way to manipulate and control the unwashed masses than to appeal to their own sense of rebellion and uprising. To take their basic ideals and channel them into support for you. "The Evil Democratic Gangster Government/Those Other Roman Leaders don't love you like We/I do! We/I will make you the new great power Political Party/Religion! The other Party/Religions can all suck it and bow down to your awesomeness!"

How are people so easily conned into embracing the enemy? Only answer I have is that you have to keep them deaf and dumb and reading only that information you selectively feed to them. That is probably why even upon adoption from Rome it was generally illegal for the public to read the bible for the next thousand years. They cherry-picked then, just as they cherry-pick now.

Many of the books in the Bible, if not all, were simply stories being passed down over the ages which finally were written down. Such is why a legitimate occurrence was twisted so far from what actually happened. Parts were also made up to explain certain unexplained phenomena of the age, such as the salt pillars.

There were occasions for which it seems the book was more about verifying their religious beliefs, since the people there lacked much reasoning power and believed "it's written, so it must be true!" I have found evidence in the book itself that the Torah (first five books) was written during a certain time frame which was centuries after it was supposed to have been written. It was during the time of King Josiah.

Basically, notice that in Genesis it says Abraham's father comes from "Ur of the Chaldeans." The Chaldeans didn't rule Ur until around the time of Josiah, and in 2Kings, chapter 22, the high priest "finds" the Torah (most bibles say "book of the law," but in the Hebrew it's the "Torah" - I used to study Hebrew). So, this book was found right when someone would have referred to the city of Ur as "Ur of the Chaldeans." However, they claim that Moses wrote it.

Not familiar with the specifics of the Torah timeline you bring up, but from what I've read thus far these stories were indeed written down often centuries later and timelines definitely get muddled in the process. If there ever was a timeline to be preserved in the first place.

While all of it reads like fairy tales, most mythology is rooted in some actual event or grain of truth. One of the more interesting elements to me is that sometimes several events or the stories of several people get combined into one event/person. The guy who built the temple was named John. The guy who destroyed it 300 years later was also named John. Suddenly, this 'one' John sounds like a long lived and very busy guy!

Much of Exodus has political intent. The exit from Egyptian slavery, wandering in the desert for 40 years and the military conquest of the lands of Canaan. All of it was to establish the Hebrews rights to the land by conquest (indigenous rights was not a concept of the time and didn't mean squat). In reality, the Hebrew tribes inhabited the Canaanite area for centuries. Exodus was the "evidence" of the rights to occupy the area they already lived on.

I'll paraphrase, out of context, something I read in Playboy about 30 years ago. "The Dead Sea Scrolls were mostly concerned with how to piously piss in the desert." I don't remember the exact quote, but it amused me.

I recall from reading "Asimov's Guide To The Bible," that the story of Samson is regarded as having been derived from a sun god myth.

I suspect that your thoughts are pretty much correct, that it is mostly a political text. The following link is for a book I recently read, called "The bible, a biography" from Karen Armstrong. It's pretty clear on how the texts formed into a supposed holy book.

A lot of the debate here centers around canonization and the Dan Brown misinformation...

You and Matt appear to be trying to paint anyone who doesn't agree with you as using Dan Brown as a primary source.

It's childish, it's untrue, it's annoying, although it's explained a lot about why the two of you make grandiose claims with little or no sourcing to back them up (but demanding everyone else present multiple sources).

Yes, a number of the unwashed masses out there were too lazy to discern between the 3 or 4 bits of historical fact and the 300 or 400 stretched conclusions that its fictional characters came up with for the sake of coloring up a fictional story.

A few have probably made it to this website.

But I have found the vast majority of people here don't fall in that category. The vast majority of people on Atheist Nexus do not fall in the grandma's-email-as-news-source crowd. It's one of the refreshing things about this community.

I appreciate healthy discourse. I really do. If you and Matt have so many sources to back up your claims as you say, I'd love to know what they are so I can put them on my reading list. We are discussing subjects for which there is extremely little empirical evidence and most of what we know has to be induced, leading to a number of personal opinions, any number of which could have been what really happened.

But to simply come on this site, take a minority position, insist it's a majority position, but without backing it up, simply dismissing anyone who doesn't agree with you as some idiot or poor soul taken in by Dan Brown...